Title: Sound of an Angel
By: Flo Wynn
Pairing: implied Dean/Castiel
Rating: PG
Series: 1) The Touch Of An Angel, 2) Taste of an Angel, 3) Angel's Scent
Spoilers: Lazarus Rising
Summary: The Sound of Forgiveness, the Sound of Damnation.

***

The first time Dean heard Castiel's boice he thought it was a trick of his mind. It was such a soothing sound compaired to the cackles of demons who took great delight in torturing him both physically and mentally - often using his father's voice or his brother's face to fool him and hurt him. But it was more than just soothing, it was also damning. Like being offered a glass of water when you are dying of dehydration but being told you have to walk a mile for it. The words were clear, vuttimg through the pain of a red hot skewer being jammed down his throat, "you're a sinner, Dean'.

Dean managed to brush it off as a delusion.

The next time it happened - which could have been minutes or years later - the voice was both gentler (as if it was healing his soul) and harsher (like it was taring into his guts just like the Hell Hounds had done, back when he had guts that is). "You don't even know what it means to be saved", the voice told him and it brought tears to his eyes with the truth behind the words. No, Dean had no idea what it was like to be saved. Yes, his dad and Sammy had pulled him out of several tough situations but they had rescued him, they had never saved him. Not like Jesus had saved humainity.

After that the voice came to him more often, promising a place in God's Kingdom as long as he would Save the world one more time. Dean didn't believe in God or his Kingdom, after all if God existed it meant that God had let his mom die, and his dad, and hsi brother, and him. It meant God had sat by and watched as a ten year old girl had been torn to shreds by the demon inside of her when an amateur Catholic exorsist preformed 'God's Work' leaving her a dead, empty shell. It meant that God had allowed that father of three to be mawled to death by a Wendigo, and that mother to be turned into a vampire so she could feast on the blood of her four year old daughter. If God existed then as far as Dean was concerned he was doing a shitty job of it.

But he was in Hell. A place of no escape, no relief from constant pain and fret. Away from Sammy who was doing God-knows-what to himself probably still searching the ends of the earth trying to find some way of getting him freed from Hell. Unless he was already dead. How could Dean know how much time had passed? Hours or months or yearsor decades? Was he soon to turn into a demon with his humanity burned away like the evil sons of bitches that he had dedicated his life to destroying? It was so true that there were things worse than death, and for Dean he was about to live it. So he listened to the voice and he thought about God - let himself have a little faith- and suddenly a blinding light filled him with a pain unlike any other he had faced in Hell and something grabbed his arm and pulled him free of the demon's grip.

That was the last time Dean heard Castiel's true voice. Back in the real world - with water and a body and much less pain - afterwards whenever the angel tried to speak to him the ground shook and his ear drums bled. So Castiel assumed a human vessel and finally Dean could look upon the being who Saved him and hear his voice. Although Dean did not remember anything about his time in Hell, he had a strange feeling of deja vu when Castiel first spoke to him in human form, his voice - to Dean - sounded soothing like a cool glass of water on a summer's day, and damning like choking on the dust of hell.

- The End.

***